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Support the fight of Native California Indigenous peoples to save the ruins of one of their ancient burial mounds. City of Vallejo, California, plans to destroy the ruins of the Glen Cove Shellmound, also known as Sagorea Te have been set back by an occupation of the site now in its 12th week.
California Shellmound struggle
The ancient shellmounds are historically like the Egyptian pyramids in age, original size and function. So huge as to have been sited on the original U.S. Coast Guard maps fo the California coast, these burial mounds have since the California Gold Rush all suffered attacks and outright destruction to be almost visibly unnoticeable in the present day and many outright destroyed such as the Emeryville shellmound.
These 3,500-year-old sites marked sacred villages where Miwok, Coastal Me-Wauk, Bay Me-Wauk, Ohlone, Patwin, Wappo, Wintu, Yokut and other coastal nations gathered in pre-colonial times to meet, trade, intermarry, pray and bury their dead. The shellmounds are a long-time focus of the struggle for survival of the Indigenous nations of the Californiacoast and represent in a material way their very own survival.
Native activists have fought for twelve years with the Greater Vallejo Recreation District and the City of Vallejo to prevent them from destroying and desecrating the Glen Cove Shellmound, where the city wants to put a parking lot and bathrooms. 13,000 human remains were stolen from this and other California shellmounds which are now stored in footlockers at University of California Berkeley.
Recently the neighboring homeowners' association wrote a resolution telling the city they don't want a park on an ancient burial ground. After a demonstration outside the Oakland Bay Trails offices, that group withdrew its support for the planned park and pulled back their $200,000 grant to Vallejo.
Right now there is a request to come out and stay for as long as possible at the occupation site this week. See their website at www.protectglencove.org for more details and directions.
Occupation spokespersons Corinna Gould and Wounded Knee DeOCampo have asked supporters to help with donations of supplies to the occupation as well as funds to help with court costs (https://www.wepay.com/donate/137138).
Please sign the online petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/ssprit/petition.html .
Fred Short, American Indian Movement spiritual leader for California, urges supporters to write their senators and President Barack Obama to sign the UN Declaration of Human Rights of Indigenous People. Short also requests letters be sent to California Governor Jerry Brown and the Native American Heritage Commission, 915 Capitol Mall, Room 364, Sacramento, CA 95814, nahc@pacbell.net, to demand the bodies stored in the foot lockers and worse containment in Berkeley and Sonoma be returned to the Native communities and the shellmounds.
Letters of support should also be sent to Osby Davis, Mayor of Vallejo, 555 Santa Clara St., Vallejo, CA 94590 and mayor@ci.vallejo.ca.us, and to Greater Vallejo Recreation District, 395 Amador St., Vallejo, CA 94590, attention: Shane McAffee, General Manager.
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Contact information
Media contacts:
Mark Anquoe, Kiowa Tribe: 415-680-0110
Morning Star Gali, Ajumawi Band, Pit River Nation: 510-827-6719
For questions, and to offer support:
protectglencove@gmail.com
Wounded Knee DeOcampo, Miwok – (707) 373-7195
Corrina Gould, Chochenyo & Karkin Ohlone – (510) 575-8408 or
shellmoundwalk@yahoo.com
SSP&RIT Secretary – sspandrit@gmail.com
Sample letter to an elected official:
I am writing to you to protest the current plan to develop the Glen Cove Sacred Site. You must understand that there is unequivocal evidence that this site is the resting place of thousands of California Indigenous people.
I believe that these people deserve the same rights and respect that are due to all who have passed on. I am sure you would be outraged if someone proposed building on a site where your relative was interred.
Please do not allow this form of racism to occur.
Thank you,
(Name and City, State of Residence)
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